Walter Blythe

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Walter Cuthbert Blythe (named after his grandfather, Walter Shirley, and his adopted grandparents, Marilla and Matthew Cuthbert) is a fictional character, son of Gilbert and Anne Blythe. He is mentioned in Lucy Maud Montgomery's Anne of Ingleside (book 6 of the Anne series), Rainbow Valley (book 7 of the Anne series) and Rilla of Ingleside (book 8 of the Anne series). He has 5 siblings, James (Jem), twins Anne and Diana (Nan and Di respectively), Shirley, and Bertha Marilla (Rilla).

Walter loves poetry and aspires to one day become a famous poet. Unbeknownst to him, he will one day fight and die in one of the world's most terrible wars.

In Rilla of Ingleside, Walter joins World War I along with his brothers, Jem and Shirley Blythe and neighbours, Kenneth Ford, Thomas Carlyle Meredith (Carl) and Gerald (Jerry) Meredith. He dies in the terrible war, while the others survive with wounds and scars.

His death was foreshadowed in Anne of Ingleside, in Chapter 41:

Walter was smiling in his sleep as someone who knew a charming secret. The moon was shining on his pillow through the bars of the leaded window . . . casting the shadow of a clearly defined cross on the wall above his head. In long after years Anne was to remember that and wonder if it were an omen of Courcelette . . . of a cross-marked grave "somewhere in France."